Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Reiza Studios have today released their end of year Development Roadmap and the studio have not held back with some exciting news for players of Automobilista to look forward to over the festive period...
2016 has been a big year for Reiza Studios. We have seen the launch of their new Automobilista Motorsport Simulator (AMS) title move from Early Access stage to a full blown Version One release. We've had F1gate, increased FFB fidelity, improved graphics, an impressive rate of development and some unforgettable content added to the sim for free or, for the first time, paid DLC in the form of such items as the 'Brit Pack' and 'Imola' DLC. AMS has gone from strength to strength in recent months.
As has become the tradition at Reiza Studios, the small development team have been at pains to maintain a steady stream of communication with the sim racing community in the form of monthly development roadmap posts. Due to the time constraints of the upcoming festive holidays and development cycles with the sim, Reiza have combined both November and December's postings into one final end of year update - and its goooooooood...
You can read the full end of year development blog below:
"This is it then - our final dev update of 2016! We promised it was going to be a good one, so hopefully it lives up to that promise
It has been a long, hard but very fulfilling year for everyone at Reiza - we´ve brought out Automobilista in march and have been working very hard since to keep it growing and evolving throughout. We´re happy to say we´ve reached our main goals, though work is still to continue hard into the initial months of 2017 to fulfill its potential as we envisage it, before we finally wrap it up to shift focus to the longer term.
The next milestone for AMS is still to come before the year ends, as v1.20 and Formula Truck are still to be released at some point next week!
Here´s the summary then of the stuff we´ve been working on.
V1.20 highlights & Formula Truck DLC
We have nice developments coming for v1.20 - you can read through it on the changelog attached for the latest Beta updates since v1.1.6 release.
For the cars, one highlight is the filling up of the Caterham series from the Brit Pack to include some new variants from their motorsport ladder.
On the audio front, @domagoj Lovric has done an extensive revision of several sound effects both on the code as well as the samples themselves - tire rolling / scrub / skid, wind noise, chassis scraping, to improve the organic interaction of these sound effects with the physics engine and hopefully provide both better feedback from the cars as well as increased immersion from the driving experience. There is some early WIP stuff already on Beta but the full results will be in the new beta build coming out later tonight.
We´ve also done some progress with AI, with further fine tuning in various fronts. @Luis Miguel has nailed an old bug where AI would not properly estimate fuel for timed races, taking much more fuel than they needed for the distance. If you´re used to running quick timed races then you may have to do some tweaking to your usual AI Strength, overall though performance should be a lot more consistent in that type of race.
As you know v1.20 will also bring a new DLC in the shape of Formula Truck , who we are happy to confirm will be officially added to Automobilista, fully revamped from the original game, prettier and meaner!
To begin with, as renewing the Formula Truck license has been a fairly late development we will deploy the same 2013 season we had in the official Formula Truck game; chances are good though we´ll expand on that with the new season as we move through 2017.
One of the custom Formula Truck features we´ve added for this release is the Speed Trap rule - every Formula Truck layout has a Speed Trap in a section of the track (usually the fastest, indicated by icon on its trackmap, a flashing icon on top left corner as you approach it while driving, and by a line of cones trackside) through which drivers are supposed to cross going no faster than 160 km/h. Exceeding 160 km/h through the Speed Trap will result in lap being invalidated in practice / qual, or an instant drive-through penalty in races. Players however retain the option to switch the rule off from the Rules menu.
We are currently still working on getting diesel smoking blowing from the exhausts to create some proper nasty virtual pollution - it probably won´t be quite ready for initial release but it should follow in the next update.
Formula Truck for Automobilista will sell for US$ 5.99, but will be free to everyone who already owned Formula Truck 2013 on Steam.
New Game Features
Recently we´ve conducted a poll among Reiza 51 members to gather which features they would most like to see us develop for Automobilista. While not all options were realistic in the short term, the idea was to gauge what users wanted most so we could factor not only into our remaining dev plan for Automobilista, but also longer term as we shift focus to the next title.
These were the results:
A few of these options are already in the works for Automobilista as previously alluded - one we can confirm to be in the pipeline is the Custom Season Tool for Championship Mode, which will allow users to design their own seasons, mix up classes, define points system along with a few more interesting new options which will also be available in other game modes.
We´l also continue to push towards improving AI behavior, rectify a few old issues and add a few new variants to get them to behave more realistically and provide a stiffer but fair challenge.
VX development
We have a new build coming up for our Virtual Xperience portal as well - @Dave Stephenson has been pushing hard to complete the new Community section to go along with our League Finder tool, providing a searchable directory of communities and leagues serving AMS users.
Our Time Trial of the Week challenges have been gaining momentum - we invite everyone to come participate and see how you measure up against the fast guys. Better get some practice in, as for next year we may be promoting some prize awarding challenges too
DLC Roadmap
Work is still going at full speed to develop the upcoming DLCs. There have been a few tweaks to the release plans, one of which being the switch in order for the upcoming Legendary Track packs coming up.
This is where we are going next:
Legendary Tracks Pt 2 - Adelaide
The famous Adelaide street circuit hosted many classic season finales as the Australian GP from 1985 to 1995, and is still used today by many popular aussie racing series, having retained a lot of the charm and unique challenges from the GP days.
In this (very early) preview of the mesh above, you get a sense of the workload involved in creating a street track such as this to modern standards - in order to deliver the full urban feel of the venue, @Alex Sawczuk, @ilka and the rest of the track team have to model a whole segment of the city neighborhood and roads adjacent to the ones used by the actual race track. Then we´ve got to fill these surroundings up with all the buildings and other trackside objects, which demands a solid 4 months worth of man-hours from the environment artists!
We´re confident this legendary track will be worth the effort and that will make a great place to race several existing as well some of the upcoming cars.
Adelaide will come in 2 versions - the longer historic 1988 layout as well as the modern 2016 track. Both versions are expected to hit beta some time in February with release following soon after.
Legendary Tracks Pt 3 - Hockenheim confirmed!
We´re happy to finally confirm the historic german Hockenheim Ring will also be coming to Automobilista!
The old Hockenheim was almost 8 kilometers long and became iconic for combining long winded flat-out sections through the forest, before rejoining the stadium section where massive crowds gathered created a football stadium atmosphere, enhancing historical moments.
The shorter modern version has retained the stadium section and remains a great venue for close wheel-to-wheel racing for many of the major international series.
As with Adelaide and Imola before, the option for Hockenheim as a subject for the Legendary Track series derives from it combining many values - great relevance both in terms of historical heritage as well as presence in the modern autoracing scene, a natural venue for several of the series present in Automobilista, and an unique experience to complement the others already offered in the sim.
Hockenheim will receive same treatment as Imola, with the pack featuring the long version in its various guises from 1972, 1988 and 2001, along with the modern 2016 version. Work on the track is also already underway, and it´s estimated initial versions will hit Beta in March, with full release towards the end of April.
With all these tracks news one would be forgiven for getting the impression the car front is being neglected, but that would be wrong
bigger news will have to wait a bit more however, hopefully as a topic for our first dev update of 2017.For now, here´s a sample from our reference material to another new series currently in the works:
Christmas Surprise!
We have also found a bit of time to put together a neat christmas present to go along with v1.20 release.
It´s not related to anything we´d previously discussed - a small surprise gift as a thank you to everyone who has supported us this year. It´s a semi-fictional car inspired by a local series, and also comes with a nice bit of terrain for it and others of its breed to play around. It´s simple but from the heart as a brazilian expression goes, and great fun to boot
Obviously we won´t say or show what it is as that would spoil the surprise, but here´s a little teaser to get you guys guessing.
Whoever guesses it right gets to become a driver for the series in-game
Steam Holiday Sale
The full Reiza catalogue is on sale on Steam since yesterday, with up to 75% in discounts
- Automobilista 60% off
- Automobilista Brit Pack 70% off
- Automobilista Imola Legendary Tracks Pt1 50% off
- Automobilista Season Pass 25% off
- Stock Car Extreme 75% off
- Formula Truck 2013 70% off
With that we wrap this last dev update - not quite the last you´ll hear from us this year of course as work is still ongoing to deploy v1.20 & Formula Truck next week before we can finally shut up shop for a few days, rest up to come back blazing in 2017!
In any case I´d like to take the opportunity in name of the whole Reiza team to wish everyone happy holidays! Hope you all have a great time and hopefully find the time in between turkey bites and champagne sips to come enjoy some sim racing"
Automobilista Motorsport Simulator is a PC only racing game by Reiza Studios. The game is available to purchase now via the Steam Network.
Here at RaceDepartment we have our very own dedicated sub forum for Automobilista. In our sub forum you will find a wide selection of downloadable content to discover, from some of the best add on tracks to a selection of interesting vehicles, our downloads section is a positive treasure trove of additional content for AMS. If that isn't enough, we also pride ourselves on hosting some of the most exciting and intense multiplayer racing events for the game. If you like AMS and want to take your enjoyment to the next level, head over to the Racing Club and Leagues section of our Automobilista sub forum and find out what we have on offer. Of course we love our community here at RD and to help spread the love we cover all the latest news regarding the sim, and offer you a place to share your opinions and discussion topics regarding all Reiza titles. Head on over to the AMS sub forum and join in the discussion today!
Did you enjoy the Reiza end of year blog post? Looking forward to the future of AMS? Has the game impressed you with its development during 2016? Let us know in the comments section below!
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